City of Sedona

Art in the Roundabouts

The Arts in Public Places program has secured art to be installed in the Canyon Drive, Morgan Road, Chapel Road and Back 'O Beyond Road on Route 179. The images below showing each roundabout with views driving north, as well as south.

The Artists and their Sculptures

Susan Kliewer with Julian & Maria 

This legendary married couple were renown pottery makers in the early 1900's and lead a pottery revival in Southwestern pueblos.

Artist Statement

I began sculpting in 1987 after working in an art casting foundry for ten years. In 1993 I was awarded a commission to create a ten foot monument of our town's namesake, Sedona Schnebly, which was installed in front of the Sedona Public Library in 1994. Since then many more monuments have been commissioned and installed in the United States and Europe.

I chose to sculpt Julian and Maria Martinez as monuments, since I was always fascinated with their story. They were innovators in their art, always searching for new techniques and designs. Together, they created masterpieces in clay, which are known throughout the world. Both were from a small place, not unlike Sedona in the early days. I feel Sedona is often overlooked as a world class art destination with splendid artists, galleries, workshops, seminars and festivals. Sedona's amazing scenery has inspired so many visitors to try their hand at the art form of choice. The thriving art community of Sedona was my inspiration for moving here in 1969 to pursue my art career. I am so grateful for the love and support this town has given me through the years.

Julian Martinez (1885-1943) began his pottery making career in 1907, with the archaeological excavation on the Pajarito Plateau, a short distance from his home, the San Ildefonso Pueblo. He and his wife Maria, were asked to reproduce some of the vessels from the site. Thus began their now legendary story. Julian worked with the yucca leaf as a brush, painting designs on Maria's pots. Being a perfectionist and an innovator, he was always searching for new ideas in technique and design. Soon they were creating masterpieces. By their example, Maria and Julian were the key figures in leading a pottery revival through the Southwestern pueblos.

Maria Martinez was born in the late 1880's at the San Ildefonso Pueblo. As a child, she watched as her aunt shaped pottery. By Maria's time, pot making was no longer a necessary part of daily life, as traditional containers had been replaced by modern Anglo enamelware. By 1910, Maria was replicating prehistoric designs and became known throughout the world for her black wares. The art of pottery making was facing extinction, but thanks to Maria, ever eager to share her craft, this traditional art form still exists today.

Don Kennell & Lisa Adler with The Sedona Roadrunner  

Indigenous to Sedona, the alert and dynamic roadrunner is a force of nature, as it watches cars drive around and sends the message to slow down.

Artist Statement

Our company DKLA Design is led by artist, Don Kennell and designer, Lisa Adler. Our company mission is to activate public space. Our artistic practice explores themes of nature and community. We use scale to take the audience out of their daily lives and invite the viewer to connect with nature via art. Our designs are playful while providing wayfaring. We make public art to help the world be a better place. We create sculptures that people fall in love with and develop a relationship with. We find that through a relationship with the art, people also find a relationship with each other.

Roadrunners are a force of nature. They are heroic figures. They eat rattlesnakes. When we make a monument out of a small but heroic animal, we aim to bring it into human consciousness. There are many reasons why people look to the animal kingdom for inspiration, heart and even guidance. Animals have superpowers we admire, but it is more than that. More and more humans are coming to understand the necessity of reimagining our relationship to nature. With our work, we invite the viewer to consider that relationship.

We have several commissioned artworks designed for vehicular traffic. The key is to develop an image that can be perceived in an instant. The roadrunner is easily identified and is not a distraction to drivers. The artwork has a natural traffic calming effect, encouraging people to slow down. We have heard from viewers in the cities where we have art in roundabouts, how they like to drive around the sculpture. We imagine this process as an optical toy like a zoetrope for people in cars.

For the Sedona Roadrunner, the pose is alert, dynamic and turning. The sculpture depicts a native bird in a naturalistic setting, creating a theatrical moment with the dramatic Sedona landscape as backdrop. The palette of the artwork reflects the natural environment. The scenario creates a postcard like image of a popular species at home in the environment. We love when site, materials and imagery come together to create unexpected, yet integrated layers. As artists, we love the idea of transport. We want to transport the viewer, to spark imagination. The idea also relates to material as we transport rigid metals into something dynamic and alive.

James Muir with Eternal  

The infinite Mobius ring surrounds a solar eternal flame at the tip of this oil lamp, which guides us along our journey and our individual paths.

 Artist Statement

My sculpting career began here in Sedona in 1980 and shortly after I owned a bronze casting foundry (Seraph M) from 1982-1988. Initially my subjects were historical in nature, but in 1990 I began to expand my work to include contemporary subjects which I’ve termed “Allegorical,” including many lifesize and monumental. Currently I have over 20 lifesize and monumental sculptures in public locations in Arizona and more than 60 in public locations across the country and abroad.

I designed this piece, “ETERNAL” with the roundabout at Chapel Road in mind for its appropriateness to also serve as a directional guide, pointing to the Chapel of The Holy Cross. This sculpture represents the universal “Eternal Flame” in the silhouette of a Roman-era clay oil lamp. The lighted flame is appropriately softly illuminated by a solar powered source, in keeping with Sedona’s International Dark Sky designation, serving as a guiding light for the traveler throughout the long days and nights of their “Journey” both to and from Sedona. 

The lamp surmounts a Red Rock “Cairn,” a feature used by man since the beginning of time, including on the trails of Sedona, as landmarks to designate a Path. Encircling the “lamp,” is the scientific phenomenon of the “Mobius Ring,” which, like Love, has only one side. Technically, a true Mobius takes the form of an “Infinity“ Figure 8 that I have distorted into a Ring to form a “Portal” through which the sacred grounds of the Red Rocks are viewed.

The lower portion of the “Ring” could optionally, be covered with climbing wild rose symbolizing the all-encompassing loving embrace of our Mother Earth.

Mark Feldtkeller with Look In Up 

Obelisks with constellations, symbols of early cultures and sacred geometry, are just some of the integral elements of this piece.

Artist Statement

More people come to Sedona today than in any time in history. Modern man is consumed by the technologies of the moment, eyes always facing down, never looking up. My intent is to capture the skies as seen by every culture of humanity that has preceded. Human kind has been influenced and inspired by the cosmos for all of their existence.

I plan to use stone columns to capture the night sky constellations with artistically carved celestial details on the stone column faces. The bases and foundations of the stone columns will be carved and sculpted in ancient hieroglyphs. This is intended to capture the formation of early cultures as they looked to the heavens for connection. Our Native American predecessors tracked the stars and the seasons. They followed the moon in its 18-year orbit and all of its phases, as represented by the Anasazi culture in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

The metal pedestals will be fabricated in durable structural steel and patinaed in a natural, rusted finish. They will present ancient pictographs from some of the earliest cultures of human kind. These pictographs will be heat applied patinas to give a subtle hint into the world of humanity’s earliest recorded history. Sacred geometry by squaring the circle, will anchor the columns in rhythm and energies of life. Sedona has always been a place to recharge oneself and a place to get back into balance in our lives and our psyche.

My hope is to take us back to a simpler and more powerful place in time, a time when we linked our eyes to the heavens for our existence, our inspirations and our way to connect to all. My years of experience creating installation art and fabrication, have helped me hone my abilities to be able to successfully execute a project of this caliber. All of my prior work for over 30 years has prepared and created this artisan craftsman, that can produce projects start to finish. I thrive in taking ideas from conception to fully fabricated works of art.

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